Category: Issues

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Tuesday, October 18, 2022

While We Are In The Dark In The Cold, Leafless Bowels of the Forests of Life,

Up Top,

God’s Glory Still Shines,

Beckoning Us to Rise Up And Love One Another

As God Loves Us.

First Samuel 2:6

The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up.

Revelation 1:8

‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

Words of Grace For Today

I don’t think of God killing, just bringing to life, not of bringing us down to Sheol (hell as it is), just raising us up out of the hell we get ourselves into.

There’s a plaque I saw once in a furniture store. Plaques with platitudes usually do not catch my attention but this one did:

Karma, I have a list of people you seem to have missed.

Well, I suppose we all might have such a list, and the idea that we can influence karma, well, that’s a wild idea.

But we pray to God constantly.

So can we provide that same list to God and ask God to do the killing stuff with the list?

Surely we can acknowledge (well most of us do, or at least many, well maybe it’s just some of us nowadays) that God is the almighty, the Alpha and the Omega, beginning and end. God as the bringer of life as well as death certainly belongs with that. So yes, God hears our prayers and answers them. And yes God could take that list and kill ‘em all off.

Why would God?

To please our blood-thirst or hunger for revenge? That is not our God, not at all, not at all.

God believes in every single one of us frail, broken, sinful creatures, enough to free us again and again from our sin so that we might live abundant lives (which means we understand that God created us to provide the best life possible to other people, and that we act accordingly.)

So our task with that list of ours is to see if we can give them the same kind of Grace that God extends to us.

It’s another day of challenges, dealing with others’ and our own brokenness, failings, and sinfulness.

Let us find the peace that God offers, so that we can forgive and give renewed life to those who sin against us.

…

Still, God, can we review my karma list sometime to see if just perhaps you can bring a few of those people their just desserts. Wouldn’t want them to miss out on the end of the feast now would we?

(God save us all.)

Lordy, Lordy, I Want That!

Monday, October 17, 2022

Oh, Can I Have A Camper Like That?

That Would Be So Much Better,

Easier, Roomier, Safer,

Warmer in Winter, Cooler in Summer!

It’s Been Dumped In The Yard Here,

…

Causing No End of Trouble!

Who Will Get It Out of Here!

Deuteronomy 5:21

Neither shall you covet your neighbour’s wife.
Neither shall you desire your neighbour’s house, or field, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.

2 John 1:6

And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment just as you have heard it from the beginning—you must walk in it.

Words of Grace For Today

We need to put limits on our wants and wishes, drives and desires, and our endless comparing and complaining, right?

Yes, by all means.

Of course, taking what is our neighbours is plainly wrong, and most of us avoid that to some degree in our lives, since societal pressure condemns those who just take. If we think we are free of the sin that this commandment would save us from, just because we do not take what is our neighbours’, then we are so misguided.

Girard had it right when he connected for us that our desires grow out of seeing what those closest to us have, which sets up competition that leads to conflict, which conflict we inevitably cathartically resolve by falsely blaming and scapegoating innocent bystanders.

This commandment to not covet or desire what is our neighbour’s tries to save us from destroying innocent bystanders as we attempt to save our relationships with those closest to us. The real challenge is that societal pressures shove us firmly into scapegoating innocents in order to cathartically resolve our conflicts. It helps society continue to appear to be ‘civilized.’ And ‘civilized’ appearances help everyone blithely continue on as if all were done well by us.

That is the same reality-denying approach to life which sets us up to have leaders like Trump, movements like ‘Querdenkers’-Covidiots-Covideniers, populist movements like Daniel Smith’s that proclaim they are looking out for the ‘common people’ when actually they are serving us all up on a platter to powerful interests, and government advisors who will say that our privacy needs to be balanced with businesses need to collect our private data from which they can create products to provide to us. Which must be products we do not need, since no one needs to collect private data to be able to identify the real needs of a population. Those are constant. The only thing that changes is the way in which others’ interests – ie. ‘not in our interest’ – work to deceive us about what is required for life. That effort is always to manipulate us to ‘have’ covetousness and competition-conflict-creating desires.

And that’s what the commandment would save us from.

If only.

As for me and the squirrels (well probably not the squirrels since they keep stealing insulation out of the skirt, but at least for me), we – or rather I – like this commandment. I know I cannot keep it. So I pray, “God save me!”

And that will have to do for this day, as everyday.